July 31, 2006

The devastation we are sowing in Lebanon doesn't touch anyone here and most of it is not even shown to Israelis. Those who want to know what Tyre looks like now have to turn to foreign channels - the BBC reporter brings chilling images from there, the likes of which won't be seen here. How can one not be shocked by the suffering of the other, at our hands, even when our north suffers? The death we are sowing at the same time, right now in Gaza, with close to 120 dead since the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, 27 last Wednesday alone, touches us even less. The hospitals in Gaza are full of burned children, but who cares? The darkness of the war in the north covers them, too.

Since we've grown accustomed to thinking collective punishment a legitimate weapon, it is no wonder no debate has sparked here over the cruel punishment of Lebanon for Hezbollah's actions. If it was okay in Nablus, why not Beirut? The only criticism being heard about this war is over tactics. Everyone is a general now and they are mostly pushing the IDF to deepen its activities. Commentators, ex-generals and politicians compete at raising the stakes with extreme proposals.

Haim Ramon "doesn't understand" why there is still electricity in Baalbek; Eli Yishai proposes turning south Lebanon into a "sandbox"; Yoav Limor, a Channel 1 military correspondent, proposes an exhibition of Hezbollah corpses and the next day to conduct a parade of prisoners in their underwear, "to strengthen the home front's morale."

It's not difficult to guess what we would think about an Arab TV station whose commentators would say something like that, but another few casualties or failures by the IDF, and Limor's proposal will be implemented. Is there any better sign of how we have lost our senses and our humanity?

Here's a letter from Tony Greenstein in today's Independent. It shows how the conquest of the south of Lebanon, one way or another or on this or that pretext, has always been a part of the zionist project.

For all the talk of a "war on terror" and rooting out Hizbollah, for more than 50 years Israeli policy regarding Lebanon has remained a constant. Lebanon should become a vassal state, in alliance with Israel, with the Muslims dispersed and powerless.

The personal diary of Moshe Sharett, Israel's second prime minister, tells of the attempts of David Ben Gurion to exacerbate the sectarian divisions inherent in Lebanon's constitution, to create a Maronite Christian state and effectively annex the south up to the Litani River. As Mr Sharett wrote on 27 February 1954, "I got tired of struggling against a whirlwind". Only the alliance with France, which led to the Suez war, put paid to these schemes.

Moshe Dayan, then chief of staff, tried to hire a Lebanese army officer who would agree to serve as a puppet leader. In 1982, Ariel Sharon acted out this desire before being forced to resign in ignominy. Today, even this pretext is discarded as Israel attempts to fulfil General Dayan's dream to "liberate Lebanon from its Muslim oppressors".

In 1982, the pretext for invasion was the attempted assassination, by the renegade Abu Nidal group of Israel's London ambassador, Shlomo Argov. Today the pretext is the capture of two Israeli soldiers, Hizbollah's rockets and the influence of Iran and Syria. The pretexts change but the aim remains the same.

TONY GREENSTEINBRIGHTON, SUSSEX

I don't want to take anything away from Tony's research here but if he can put these easy to establish facts in a letter why can't mainstream reporters and commentators do so?

This morning's Guardian has the death toll at Qana even higher than it was last night.

It was an unremarkable three-storey building on the edge of town. But for two extended families, the Shalhoubs and the Hashems, it was a last refuge. They could not afford the extortionate taxi fares to Tyre and hoped that if they all crouched together on the ground floor they would be safe.

They were wrong. At about one in the morning, as some of the men were making late night tea, an Israeli bomb smashed into the house. Witnesses describe two explosions a few minutes apart, with survivors desperately moving from one side of the building to the other before being hit by the second blast. By last night, more than 60 bodies had been pulled from the rubble, said Lebanese authorities, 34 of them children. There were eight known survivors....

Over the border, Israeli leaders expressed sorrow for the civilian deaths, but the military said that Qana had been targeted because Hizbullah had been using it as a base from which to launch rockets. "There was firing coming from there before the air strike. We didn't know there were civilians in the basement of that building," one Israeli defence force spokesman said. He added that rockets had been fired from Qana "in the last few hours" before the air strike.

I referred earlier to the Israeli atrocity at Qana in 1996. Going from memory I said that I thought it had been an electioneering stunt by Shimon Peres. Here's a Counterpunch article from around the tenth anniversary:

Coincidentally enough the current attacks take place almost exactly ten years after a terrible Israeli massacre of Lebanese inside a UN compound in Lebanon [April 18, 1996] This was during the days Israel occupied southern Lebanon, when Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres was Prime Minister. During the election campaign Peres decided to have a little war to improve on his "dovish" image. So he launched "Operation Grapes of Wrath" causing 400,000 people to flee their homes, some 800 of them to a UN base called Qana.

On April 18 the IDF shelled Qana. I quote from the August 1996 issue of a journal I edit, "The Struggle". "The TV showed battle hardened journalists weeping as they walked among the corpses. No TV news in the world could show the most revealing pictures. Rescuers for a long time didn't know how many people were killed. There were heaps of body parts all around." Go on the internet and google "+qana +massacre". Available for viewing is an absolutely horrifying video of the mangled bodies of children.

The Israeli government offered various excuses. They said the IDF was firing at Hizbullah positions and a few shells went long. They explained that their soldiers didn’t know the UN base was so close, or that it held civilians. They denied they had any aircraft in the area. PM Peres was quoted as saying, "In my opinion, everything was done according to clear logic and in a responsible way. I am at peace."

The Israeli excuses were all lies. 36 shells were in and around the base.

And this time around?

Over the border, Israeli leaders expressed sorrow for the civilian deaths, but the military said that Qana had been targeted because Hizbullah had been using it as a base from which to launch rockets. "There was firing coming from there before the air strike. We didn't know there were civilians in the basement of that building," one Israeli defence force spokesman said. He added that rockets had been fired from Qana "in the last few hours" before the air strike.

So things have really changed. Israeli officials know to "express sorrow." They can now do the shooting and crying on their feet.

July 30, 2006

This is an update on an earlier post. According to the BBC, the death toll at Qana has risen to 54. It was 40 when I blogged it this morning.

Reports from the southern Lebanese town of Qana have described a scene of carnage, with rescue workers continuing to pull bodies from the ruins of a civilian building.

Early on Sunday morning, as BBC correspondents arrived at the site of the deadliest Israeli strike so far in this conflict, frantic efforts to find survivors were already under way.

Displaced families had been sheltering in the basement of a house in Qana, which was crushed after a direct hit.

The Israeli strike killed at least 54 people, more than half of them children.

The BBC's Jim Muir said that for some of the rescuers, experienced as they were, the emotional impact of finding so many dead children in the ruins was too much.

"As I arrived, they were carrying out on a stretcher the limp body of a young boy of about 10. Many other children were pulled out of the rubble lifeless," our correspondent said.

"That's a Red Cross rescue worker sitting here in the sunshine just sobbing - he's so overcome with

I honestly didn't know what had happened when I posted about this this morning. I kept hearing about it at the demonstration in Trafalgar Square. Then I googled Qana. See how many sites came up. I've mentioned it several times on this blog. Something I noticed when I googled it was Wikipedia, which is the first general list website to appear after the "google news" items. I checked Wikipedia's entry for Qana and it showed the earlier atrocity from 1996. Peres had it bombed, as I recall, for electioneering purposes.(I'm not 100% sure though) 106 people were killed then, in a UN compound.

Qana is a village located southeast of Tyre, Southern Lebanon. It has been the location of two separate incidents in which the Israeli Defense Forces caused civilian deaths during military operations (Operation Grapes of Wrath and the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict):

* 1996 shelling of Qana - On April 18, 1996, amid heavy fighting between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hezbollah during "Operation Grapes of Wrath", a Fijian UNIFIL compound in the village was shelled by Israeli artillery, killing 106 civilians and injuring around 116 others who had taken refuge there to escape the fighting. Four UNIFIL soldiers were also seriously injured.[1][2] * 2006 Qana airstrike - On the 30 July 2006, a double airstrike on the town that Israel claimed had been frequented by mobile rocket units, killed at least 54 (including 34-37 children) and injured many others when an apartment building collapsed.[.

Did you see that? An entry in an online encyclopaedia on Qana even takes today's horrors into account. Even more remarkable is the fact that the entry for 1996 runs a purely zionist line, making the atrocity look like an accident or a crossfire thing. But today's entry has nothing resembling a zionist excuse. It seems that the zionists haven't worked out their story yet, but they're working on it.

Here's an article I've been sent that exposes the myth of Hizbollah hiding behind civilians. I had said that it was a pay for sub but apparently there's a procedure whereby you can get a freebie for the Salon site for day.

The "hiding among civilians" myth

Israel claims it's justified in bombing civilians because Hezbollah mingles with them. In fact, the militant group doesn't trust its civilians and stays as far away from them as possible.

By Mitch Prothero

Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around those targets to destroy them, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths -- the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far -- on "terrorists" who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.

But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians like the plague. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been.

You can sign up for a day pass to Salon but does anyone believe zionist claims anyway?

An Israeli air strike killed at least 40 Lebanese civilians, including 23 children, on Sunday, prompting the Lebanese government to cancel a planned visit to Beirut by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The raid on the southern village of Qana was the bloodiest single attack during Israel's 19-day-old war on Hizbollah and rescuers said the death toll might rise.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said he would hold no negotiations before a ceasefire and officials said they had told Rice to stay away from Beirut until the fighting stopped.

Siniora denounced "Israeli war criminals". He demanded an immediate, unconditional ceasefire and an international investigation into "Israeli massacres".

The air strike, whose target was not immediately clear, occurred as Rice was in Jerusalem on a mission to persuade Israel and Lebanon to agree on an international force to deploy on the border.

So Condi's not wanted in Lebanon. But perhaps she, together with Bush, Blair and Olmert, should be wanted in the Hague.

Ex-Python Terry Jones has written a piece to be performed in Trafalgar Square, and Michael Kustow has compiled and will direct a performance using the words of Harold Pinter, Robert Fisk, Amira Hass, Adrian Mitchell, Daniel Barenboim and Lebanese artist Zena el Khalil and Palestine's leading poet Mahmoud Darwish

Jack Straw, now Leader of the Commons, said in a statement released after meeting Muslim residents of his Blackburn constituency that while he grieved for the innocent Israelis killed, he also mourned the '10 times as many innocent Lebanese men, women and children killed by Israeli fire'.

He said he agreed with the Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells that it was 'very difficult to understand the kind of military tactics used by Israel', adding: 'These are not surgical strikes but have instead caused death and misery amongst innocent civilians.' Straw said he was worried that 'a continuation of such tactics by Israel could destabilise the already fragile Lebanese nation'.

This is the same cabinet that supported the starvation and bombardment of Gaza all of a sudden fretting over Lebanon. And the Beloved Leader, Tony Blair, is supposed to be standing down. Could these free-spirited ministers simply be positioning themselves for that happy day?

July 29, 2006

There's a curious thread that has just come to a close on the Just Peace list. It began with a report back on the Israel rally picket by Deborah Fink and ended (if it has ended) with a wonderful comment by Charlie Pottins (of Random Pottins fame). It was what happened in between those two that was so strange. Deborah wrote a little addition to what I had already posted:

The Zionist Federation didn't give us enough time to get hold of people (!) and a lot of us had already gone on the rally the previous day, while some didn't see the point - we had already made much impact with our advert.

I think it was worth it as they could see there is an opposition - anything to get them out of their ghetto and rattle their self-righteous, bigoted, racist, denial. And the JfJfP banner made up for our smallness - it was enough to 'spoil' the scenery for them! One man told the press that we don't represent the Jewish community. I said HE didn't, (either).

I was lunged at a couple of times but the police took them away.

Paul Usiskin's (Peace Now UK leader) presence there says it all about where Peace Now has gone. He did not like it when I challenged him! I've seen how 2 members of the Peace Now Exec have openly supported Israel's attack on Lebanon, and the EveningStandard said that the Israeli peace camp supports it - obviously minus Gush Shalom.

She posted a press release here. Well then Charlie Pottins wrote the following spoof (I've just realised that this is going to be a long post but please hang in there):

I have been concerned by reports that middle aged matrons attending the Solidarity for Israel rally (sorry I meant to say "For Peace, Against Terror" rally - must keep to the proprieties) "gobbed at" Jewish women protesting for Jews for Justice, and that stalwart defenders of the State of Israel only tried to tear down their banner and "lunged at" a participant.

I realise that the hearties may have been inhibited by a police presence, but how about the gobbers (i.e.spitters for those unfamiliar with Mancunian parlance)? How good was their aim, and did they connect? I am not sure what the Jewish law says about this - perhaps someone can write and ask Jonathan Sacks? I remember once being told that Bnei Akiva members would not participate with Habonimniks in putting out a bonfire in traditional manner (after the ladies had retired) because it was "against the din", but I heard last year of Orthodox yeshiva students attempting to pee on a Gay Pride procession, so if showing your putz and urinating in public is permitted providing you aim at another human being of whom the Torah or you disapprove is permitted, then spiiting by ladies and perhaps juveniles is kosher if you do it for Israel.

However, can we be sure our Gobbers Gedud are sufficiently trained and effective? Some will have been accompanied by children, and hoping to set a good example to their offspring I'm sure. How about setting up Gobbing classes as part of the regular activity of Zionist women's groups? There could be contests for seniors and juniors, and prizes presented by dignitaries. If keen participants practice at home you could leave a mark on the wall where the prize would then hang. I can see it now, proud paterfamilias "Oh yes, my wife is a good woman, and my daughter too, her prize is above Ruby's. Did I tell you, we originally came from Spitalfields". It could become a new competitive sport at the Maccabiah, and it would give the children something to look up to.

Well that was too much for Linda Grant who took just over an hour to respond to Charlie.

Whereas if a small group had waved Israeli flags and handed out leaflets at Saturday's Stop the War Demo, I'm sure they would have been greeted with great friendliness and courtesy by the crowd, eager to hear an alternative point of view, especially those carrying the Nasrallah placards.

Ah, but we weren't waving Lebanese flags about. One Lebanese boy wanted to bring his but was advised it was counter-productive. Are you trying to justify their behaviour, Linda? Come to think of it, why hasn't Engage picked up on this anti-Semitism coming from right-wing Zionsits? Says it all. (They only care about so called 'left anti-Semitism', i.e. when Israel is criticised).

Anyway, for sure, at the Stop the War demo I don't suppose Israel apologists would have been greeted with friendliness but I doubt they would have been spat at....

Also, the Israel apologists were particulary angry because we are Jewish - one of them admitted this. They expect all Jews to toe the official line and stick together, however wrong, and so see us as traitors. We also undermine their 'arguments', credibility and attempt to show the Jewish community as one. So, they probably would not have spat at non Jewish protesters.

You can see that we are rattling the Israeli Embassy.

Their anger is also, I think, about denial. The truth hurts, and they don't like being told they/Israel,are wrong. Naughty children don't like being told off and get defensive and try to justify themselves. But I'm sure Deborah Maccoby can elaborate on this.

There is also a lot of projection going on (and I'm not even trained in psychoanalysis). They call us Nazis, but they are like the Germans who kept silent during the Holocaust. They are the real traitors - to Jewish values, (as I replied to them).

It seems the whole rally was one big hypocritical propoganda exercise in hate- mongering and brainwashing. The Chief Rabbi was apparently preaching hate.

A group of zionists from Betar and the Zionist Federation (if there's a difference) turned up to picket the Rachel Corrie cantata. People supporting the cantata needed the same protection that the JfJfP women needed at the Israel rally.

No one was abusive to the zionist pickets who waved Israeli flags and gave out leaflets. They tore up our Jews against zionism leaflets or they screwed them up and threw them at us. No one actually lunged at us but they did keep breaking through the police cordon to hurl threats and abuse.

I remember too when there was a picket of the Israeli embassy (when Israel expelled 400 Palestinians) there were a few JDL types there to intimidate us and again the police were on hand to offer protection.

But of course you're not comparing like with like. The Stop the War rally was to stop Israel destroying Lebanon, the Israel rally was to support Israel destroying Lebanon and Gaza, together with their civilian populations, so there may well have been anger at zionists waving Israel flags at the StW march, perhaps you should try it.

You might want to promote the idea that oppressors and resistors are six of one and half a dozen of the other (or worse, that Israel is the victim here) but I think the world might have got a little wiser over the past couple of weeks in spite of the propagandist efforts of you and your zionist cohorts in the media.

Since you're over your writer's block, where do the great watchdogs against antisemitism stand on all of this? I mean Engage of course.

Linda's post set me thinking. So would any alternative view in another demonstration have had the response that the people at the rally gave. I don't know, but what I do know is what happens when we go out to campaign against Israel's actions in the public arena. There was the last rally in defence of Israel's behaviour. We were corralled away from the crowds and protected by the police. Hot coffee was thrown at us. We were told that the wrong Jews died in Auschwitz and they tried to come into our space with the Israeli flag. They were extremely intimidating.

Now I've seen Linda Grant do what follows on other threads when the discussion isn't going her way. Cop this:

I wonder what's going to be done with these violent, hate-filledcrackpot Jews when Palestinians and former Zionists are joined together in their new unitary state of brotherly love. Large prisons seem to be the answer. The question is, just how big will they need to be?

I have to admit I was quite angry about this complete non sequitur and the idea suggested in it. she didn't just move the goal posts, she moved the country:

Apologies to the list. I said that Linda Grant had got over her writer's block. Obviously I was wrong. Having picked an argument in favour of zionists in the UK spitting at and threatening Jews in the UK for criticising Israel she has been reduced to changing the subject completely - and not for the first time.

And this caring soul jokes about the size of prisons in Palestine when Israel is actually enlarging its prisons for an expected bumper crop of Lebanese prisoners.

Perhaps she thought that this was the Engage list where she can say what she likes knowing that other contributors will adopt false names to support her.

Moving to the subject of one state or two, that would be an interesting discussion to have but since Engage refuses to campaign for either it would be pointless any of them joining in.

Well now here comes Charlie Pottins. There were a few more posts under the same thread but Charlie does a strange thing when he posts to a thread. He changes the subject bar which breaks the thread and so you don't always know if he is responding to something or initiating a new topic. But anyway, here's his post:

I don't know what "hate-filled crackpots" Linda Grant is talking about or why she introduces expressions which nobody else has used, unless it is because it is easier to argue with what people have not said. I am also puzzled that she is talking about prisons in Israel when the people we were discussing do not live there. Perhaps like some of them Linda gets a bit confused as to where we do live. Kenton is between Brent and Harrow and has not yet been annexed to Greater Israel.

As regards the possibility of a united state in which Linda sneers there might be brotherly love (what a preposterous idea, eh?), again, Linda apparently prefers to worry about what might be than to discuss what is, which is understandable I suppose, there is such an awful mess to face, and not just in Israel.. But we do have to consider how we can make some progress out of it.

The immediate problem is that there is already one state in Israel-Palestine, which still rules over the lives of people who are not its citizens, and also expects support and loyalty from others who are not its residents, on the assumption that we should be, or feel guilty. It has succeeded in manipulating the insecurity and misguided loyalties of a large number of Diaspora Jews but there is no reason to assume this is permanent, in fact it is already weakened.

There may be a minority of hard cases who find extreme Zionism and anti-Arab racism an outlet for their own problems and unpleasant tendencies, whether among right-wing settlers or here. After all Jews are not that different from anyone else. These should not be confused with frightened and unhappy people whose response to their current unease is to lash out at people who remind them what is wrong. Women in Black can tell you all about facing it. But yes, we have had our share of violent extremists (I will avoid a discussion on political theory by not referring to "fascists"), They threw a grenade into a peace march in Jerusalem during the previous Lebanon war, one of them assassinated an Israeli prime minister, and lots of them turned on Israel soldiers and police during the Gaza evacuation, even dressing up in concentration camp uniforms and screaming that the soldiers were "Nazis", "Kapos" etc. (oddly the Board forgot its concern with people making light of the Holocaust).

These characters were organised and they have their supporters here. So yes, if people in Israel decide they want a different set-up, whether a unified or federated democratic state or even a genuine two-state policy, just as a majority supported the Gaza evacuation, they may face a problem with these fanatics. I remember the way France had so much trouble with the colons and fascists who objected to withdrawal from Algeria, and even waged terror on their fellow-Frenchmen. I have read people like Harold Fisch of Gush Emunim, as well as Kahane, and don't expect them to have too much respect for any kind of democracy. So yes it will probably be necessary to take measures to restrain them. that is the right of any democracy. But why does Linda assume this would mean "large prisons"? Why assume there would be such large numbers of these people, and that somehow a majority of citizens who had decided on peace would be unable of overcoming their opposition? Or is it unthinkable that anyone should dare say boo to the far Right?

Getting back to today's reality, I can't help noticing a tone of incredulity in Linda's question that anyone should ever envisage Jews and other people living together in one state. But this is worrying. You see, Linda, Jews and Arabs already live in the State of Israel, and are supposedly equal citizens. In some places they even live in the same neighbourhood. If Israel tackles discrimination, such places might increase. Besides, the Arab population is increasing. Does Linda have a problem with this? Perhaps her idea of a "two-state solution" is one of two racially exclusive states (if one can call the shrunken enclaves to which Palestinians are being confined a "state"), but it is not mine. Maybe Linda has not thought about this, but instead of asking what might happen to right-wing extremist Jews she might consider what she wants to do with Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship?

More immediately, since neither Linda nor I are Israelis (though she spends more time there), and since we were talking about an incident in north-west London, where large numbers of Jews and Muslims and other communities live, with or without "brotherly love", but just getting by as neighbours, is that too a problem? I suppose if you are a Zionist it is. Not natural for different people to live alongside each other and get along, is it?

So far Linda Grant hasn't replied, not to the Just Peace list anyway.

I thought Charlie was so eloquent there, I was looking forward to seeing it on his own blog but...a quick look, and nothing doin'.

Here's a note I have just received from someone I know in Berlin who works for an American broadcaster:

I am watching BBC which I think is the US version, and comparing it to the live European version of a story that ran this afternoon out of Lebanon.... wow.... hardly know they are talking about the same event...... the US version is totally politically correct, the Euro version is spontaneous, you see the cameraman who was wounded bleeding (just his hand), that's been cut out, the children who were wounded, cut out, the live commentary of the reporter who says they spoke to Israel several times, told them where they were, all cut out..... reporter now a sophisticated, made up woman in a studio, the commentary voice over by someone else, not the original reporter.....

The BBC? The Bush Broadcasting Corporation? The Blair Broadcasting Corporation?

Ex-Python Terry Jones has written a piece to be performed in Trafalgar Square, and Michael Kustow has compiled and will direct a performance using the words of Harold Pinter, Robert Fisk, Amira Hass, Adrian Mitchell, Daniel Barenboim and Lebanese artist Zena el Khalil and Palestine's leading poet Mahmoud Darwish

July 27, 2006

The British government is launching a pretend protest against US arms supplies to Israel via the UK. From Gulf Daily News:

Britain will make formally complaint to the US over its use of a British airport for transiting bombs to Israel, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said last night.

She said it appeared the US did not follow proper procedures when transporting arms to Israel via Britain.

"I have already notified the US that we are not happy about it," Beckett said, after a meeting of foreign ministers on the Lebanon crisis in Rome.

"We have already let the US know that this is an issue that appears to be seriously at fault, and we will be making a formal protest if it appears that that is what has happened."

British media reported earlier yesterday that aircraft carrying "bunker-busting" bombs from the US to Israel refuelled at Prestwick airport in Scotland over the weekend.

Beckett indicated that her complaint was of a procedural nature.

"It appears that in so far as there are procedures for handling that kind of hazardous cargo, irrespective of what they are, it does appear that they were not followed," she said.

Poor translation, I know. Anyway, it appears that the foreign minister is upset at America not following proceedures. The killing of Lebanese civilians clearly isn't an issue for her. Still reactionaries in the Gulf can pretend that the UK is pursuing a fairer line on this Lebanon business than America is.

14 Israeli soldiers were killed yesterday according to the Guardian. Remember these soldiers, at least 22 of whom have now been killed, were supposed to be trying to free 2 Israeli soldiers. By any reckoning this operation has been a failure so far. It seems like only yesterday that Meron Benvenisti was saying how the tide of opinion would turn sooner than most commentators were suggesting. Oh, it was only yesterday.

The LA Times is now reporting on how Israel has changed its war aims. To my untrained eye it looks like war is Israel's war aim. As far as that goes, their most recent efforts have been a rip roaring success.

Right now I am hearing a BBC Radio 4 report on Gaza where Israel's onslaught has continued largely unnoticed by the outside world on account of being overshadowed by events in Lebanon. A doctor from Shifa hospital in Gaza said that he has never seen such bad conditions in the hospital as now.

July 26, 2006

Here's a comment in today's Ha'aretz by former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor, Meron Benvenisti. He believes that Israeli opposition to the war will come sooner than many expect but the right now the public and mainstream parties (and zionists around the world) are in a state of patriotic fervour:

No one is able to predict the minute when the opposition to the war and the bloodshed turns from an act of betrayal into a legitimate and even correct stance; when a moral condemnation of the war's evil effects becomes acceptable from a patriotic point of view and when slogans like "uprooting terror," "a war for our homes," "an existential struggle" and their like, turn from resonant war-cries into empty rhetoric.

He ends by saying Israel will come out of this the clear loser, "the object of impotent hatred."

This is terrible, ok, terribly funny in parts. It's that zionist hasbara* thingy again. It's in Arutz Sheva and its about putting the case for Israel.

Question of the Week

"I am the only Jew in my office so I face a daily barrage of questions about Israel's actions in Lebanon. I don't know who appointed me as Israel's spokesman and I am not armed with the answers. Can you help?"

Answer:

At times like this, every Jew becomes an ambassador for Israel. Even if you don't agree with everything Israel does, any decent person must stand up for Israel's right to self-defense.

We can leave the military and political issues to the experts, but we should all be clear on the moral questions raised by this war. Let's look at a few of the most commonly asked questions.

Q: How can Israel justify killing civilians if their intent is to crush Hizbullah?

A: The death of innocents is a tragic inevitability of war. Our hearts go out to all those caught in the middle. The sad fact is that the Lebanese people are being held hostage by Hizbullah. Just as it is clear that Hizbullah is morally culpable for any harm done to the two Israeli hostages that they hold, so too are they culpable for the fate of Lebanese innocents amongst whom they hide. A civilian who is killed while being used by a terrorist as a human shield is a victim of the terrorist, not of the Israeli army, which does not target innocent civilians.

Q: Isn't Israel's response a bit disproportionate?

A: If Israel were merely taking revenge, then it would need to be proportionate. But Israel is waging a defensive war. Since when is war proportionate? In war, you don't measure your response to the enemy by what they have done to you in the past, but rather by what needs to be done to stop them attacking in the future. Israel's actions are proportionate to the threat, not to the damage done.

Q: Doesn't Israel understand that they are just creating more terrorists? The anger and fury at Israel as a result of bombing Lebanon will only make more people want to join Hizbullah.

A: Feelings of frustration, anger, fear and rage do not make you into a terrorist. A culture of death and an education of hate does. Israel doesn't need to do anything to create terrorists - Islamic extremism does that - but Israel must act to destroy those who threaten its people.

Q: Hizbullah indeed has a militant wing, but it also does a lot of good. They are responsible for social programs, educational projects and humanitarian work in South Lebanon. By destroying Hizbullah, Israel also destroys all the good they do. Isn't that demonising a group that is not all bad?

A: If a serial killer also happens to volunteer for his local hospital, has donated money to an orphanage, and looks after his ailing grandmother, he is still a serial killer, and should be treated as such. The danger he poses far outweighs the concern for any good he may do.

Q: By using violence, how is Israel any better than its terrorist enemies?

A: That is as ridiculous as saying that a woman who fights off an attacker is no better than her attacker. Israel would not touch Hizbullah if it did not attack. Israel seeks to live in peace with its neighbours; Hizbullah and its allies seek to destroy Israel, no matter what Israel does.

Look at the Hizbullah flag. It depicts a rifle lifted in the air. Violence is a part of its very identity. On the other hand, the very name of the Israeli army defines its purpose: the Israel Defense Forces. Its flag depicts an olive branch and a sword: peace is a priority; war is a last resort.

For Hizbullah, war is holy. For Israel, war can never be holy. War may be necessary, like when your citizens are being attacked unprovoked. War may be moral, like when innocent lives are being threatened; but even then, war is never holy.

There is a world of difference between a moral war and a holy war. A moral soldier fights reluctantly, while holy warriors glory in the fight. A moral soldier is burdened by the obligation, while holy warriors delight in the pain inflicted on the enemy. A moral soldier fights when there is no other option, a holy warrior seeks violence as a way of life. A moral soldier takes measures to limit innocent casualties; a holy warrior seeks to maximise them.

A holy warrior fears times of peace, because then he has no purpose. A moral soldier dreams of a time when peace will reign. Then, the Israel Defense Forces will be made joyously redundant, as "one nation will not lift a sword against another nation, and they will no longer learn to wage war."

So there we have it. The zionists, probably the most moral apologists in the world.

As its citizens are being killed, Israel is, yet again, inflicting death and destruction on Lebanon. It tries to portray this horror as necessary for its self-defence. Indeed, the casual observer might regard the rocket attacks on Israeli cities such as Haifa and my own home town, Nahariya, as justifying this claim.

While states should defend their citizens, states which fail this duty should be questioned and, if necessary, reconfigured. Israel is a state which, instead of defending its citizens, puts all of them, Jews as well as non-Jews, in danger.

What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other.

Many who wish to hide the immorality of the Israeli state do so by restricting attention to the horrors of the post-1967 occupation and talking about a two-state solution, since endorsing a Palestinian state implicitly endorses the ideology behind a Jewish one.

The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part of Palestine which became Israel. This action was carefully planned. Without it, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible. Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion, have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internally displaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews.

Surely Holocaust memory and Jewish longing for Eretz Israel would not be sufficient to justify ethnic cleansing and ethnocracy? To avoid the destabilisation that would result from ethical inquiry, the Israeli state must hide the core problem, by nourishing a victim mentality among Israeli Jews.

To sustain that mentality and to preserve an impression of victimhood among outsiders, Israel must breed conditions for violence. Whenever prospects of violence against it subside, Israel must do its utmost to regenerate them: the myth that it is a peace-seeking victim which has "no partner for peace" is a key panel in the screen with which Israel hides its primordial and continuing immorality.Israel's successful campaign to silence criticism of its initial and continuing dispossession of the indigenous Palestinians leaves the latter no option but to resort to violent resistance. In the wake of electing Hamas - the only party which, in the eyes of Palestinians, has not yet given up their cause - the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank were subjected to an Israeli campaign of starvation, humiliation and violence.

The insincere "withdrawal" from Gaza, and the subsequent blockade, ensured a chronicle of violence which, so far, includes Palestinian firing of Kasem rockets, the capture of an Israeli soldier and the Israeli near re-occupation of Gaza. What we witness is more hatred, more violence from Palestinians, more humiliation and collective punishments from Israelis - all useful reinforcement for the Israeli victim mentality and for the sacred cow status of Israeli statehood.

The truth is that there never could have been a partition of Palestine by ethically acceptable means. Israel was created through terror and it needs terror to cover-up its core immorality. Whenever there is a glimmer of stability, the state orders a targeted assassination, such as that in Sidon which preceded the current Lebanon crisis, knowing well that this brings not security but more violence. Israel's unilateralism and the cycle of violence nourish one another.

Amidst the violence and despite the conventional discourse which hides the root of this violence, actuality calls upon us to think. The more we silence its voice, the more violently actuality is sure to speak.

In Hebrew, the word elem (a stunned silence resulting from oppression or shock) is etymologically linked to the word almut (violence). Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which could tear the world apart.

The United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan accused Israel of deliberately targeting a UN observation post in southern Lebanon, in a bomb attack thought to have killed four unarmed military observers.

Since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants began two weeks ago, there had been several dozen incidents of firing close to UN peacekeepers and observers, including direct hits on nine positions, some of them repeatedly, a UN official said.

As a result of these attacks, 12 UN personnel have been killed or injured, the official said.

I just googled Israel UN and I was quite shocked to see the The Australian leading with Israel's denial. It's report ends on the line "The Israeli army said an "inquiry is underway."" So that's alright then.

According to the Syndey Morning Herald the nationalities of the four vctims were Austrian, Chinese, Canadian and Finnish. Do we need further proof of Israel's pariah status?UPDATE: BBC Radio 4 has just started covering for Israel over its killing of 4 UN civilain officials in Lebanon. The first report I heard was to say that Israel had killed the workers. Now Radio 4 is leading on Israel's expression of "regret." You have to get up very early in the morning to catch Israel out in the propaganda stakes.

Here's a letter in today's Guardian condemning Israel's war crimes against Lebanese and Palestinian civilians:W

e, Israeli citizens resident in the UK, write to make public our dissent from the acts of aggression committed by the Israeli army in Lebanon and Gaza. The Israeli government claims this is necessary aggression in the interests of Israeli national security. We say: "Not in our name."

We do not share the sense of victimisation so immediately assumed by many Israelis. In casting themselves as the sole victims, they obscure the suffering of others, as well as their own role in inflicting that suffering. The destruction of a neighbouring country and the devastation of its civil society cannot contribute to the growth of a partner for peace. Likewise, the long-lasting occupation of millions of Palestinians cannot inspire good will among Israel's Arab neighbours.

The persistent policy of abducting of Lebanese and Palestinian citizens and their detention in Israel without trial cannot further the process of constructive political dialogue. The ongoing Israeli boycott of the democratically elected government of the Palestinian authority has resulted in a humanitarian crisis. This is now aggravated by the Israeli bombardments of densely populated civilian areas, meant to bring them into submission and to assert the Israeli control of Gaza, despite Israel's withdrawal.

Israel's unilateral politics cannot generate just solutions to constant Israeli aggression in Lebanon and to 40 years of occupation over the Palestinian people. We call upon the Israeli government to immediately withdraw all forces from Lebanon and to stop its attacks on Lebanese and Palestinian civilian populations. We call upon the British government and on the international community to actively intervene to end the Israeli aggression in Lebanon.

July 25, 2006

I've had this blog drawn to my attention by Stephen Marks. It's called The Jews of Lebanon and here is its mission statement:

It is the intent of this blog to reestablish a connection between Lebanese of the Jewish faith around the world with their country of Lebanon. The message of coexistence and genuine national unity is not applicable so as long as a fragment from Lebanon’s mosaic of minorities is missing. If religious coexistence fails in Lebanon it will ultimately fail throughout the world.

It is the intent of this blog to provide a venue to express an adamant rejection of the intertwining of politics and humanitarian and moral endeavors. We reject the discriminatory and ignorant tendencies to equate the religion of Judaism to the politics of Zionism.

The Lebanese experience has reaffirmed the strongly held belief that so as long as we remain victims of prejudgment and bias we will continue embedding ignorance within the fabric of our society. This blog is established in the hopes that we can once again reaffirm our faith in our country and in the principle of national unity and the morals of respect and integrity.

This endeavor is strictly initiated and upheld by our patriotic and moral convictions and not influenced by any political considerations. Our aim and intent is solely rested upon our faith in finally building the Lebanese Republic that not only accepts but embraces religious and cultural diversity.

Any individual who subscribes to our philosophy of separating political agendas from moral obligations is welcomed and encouraged to help make this blog a success.

Long Live the Lebanese (no matter what their religious convictions are!)

Here's an interesting report from this new blog:

The reality of what exactly happened to the synagogue during the civil war is more complex than one might expect. Contrary to the prevailing view that anti-Semitism was the only driving force behind the migration of Arab Jews from their Arab lands, what happened at the Maghen Abraham synagogue lends some support to a view held by some pundits that Israelis had a direct hand in wanting to “facilitate” Jewish-Arab migration to Israel by terrorizing the communities into fleeing their homes.

An article published in the New York Times in 1982 relates how shortly after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in that year, an Israeli shell targeted the Maghen Abraham synagogue, blowing a hole in its roof while some 60 Jewish and Muslim refugees were sleeping there.

The assault came after Israeli artillery had fired from East Beirut and gunboats cruising offshore had been persistently pounding Wadi Abu Jmil, a district well known for being a Jewish quarter, said neighborhood residents.

At the same time, in July 1982, an article in the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, said that representatives of the World Zionist Organization had been unable to convince the Jews of West Beirut to emigrate to Israel.

“‘Why should we leave?’ they asked. ‘Here are our homes and our friends,’” said one Lebanese Jew quoted in the report.

Others argue, however, that a heavy PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) presence in Wadi Abu Jmil was the reason for Israeli bombardment. While exact details may never become clear, either way the synagogue suffered at different times throughout the Lebanese civil war, as did many other religious temples of all confessions located in Downtown Beirut. Unlike many of these, Maghen Abraham was never totally destroyed.

Israel seems to be intent on destroying the very memory of Palestine. See this from the Corner Report:

Buried and half buried in the ruins of the Ministry of the Interior were hundreds of thousands of file cases and documents – birth and death certificates, identification records, passports and other travel documents, ledgers of hand written information – a heritage of historical information about Nablus residents that covered more than 100 years of successive Palestinian occupations under the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate, the Jordanian kingdom, and the current Israeli regime.

Abe Hayeem of Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine introduced the link to the Just Peace list so, "This horrific crime went unreported in the press."

HRW has been a huge disappointment. It has yet to issue a broad condemnation of Israeli war crimes. It seems to be more concerned about funders than truth. But it DOES respond to criticism. Contact HRW and demand that it condemn Israeli crimes. Forward your letters to this web site for posting.

This is strange. I've seen it written that the Chief Rabbi "quoted" Mother Theresa to justify the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. Here's the quote from a zionist blog:

Israel is fighting today in Lebanon because six years ago it withdrew from Lebanon."

"Israel is fighting today in Gaza because one year ago it withdrew from Gaza. And Israel discovered the terrible truth spoken by the late Mother Theresa - that no good deed goes unpunished."

Curiously, the woman reporting the event didn't notice the quote but she did comment on what the Chief had to say about Israel's withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon.

The Chief Rabbi is widely regarded as being amongst the more politically liberal-minded of orthodox Jews. That quote makes it look as if he's taken a political stance on the current war which is well to the right of the current Kadima-Labour government, and akin to that of the Likud. It comes very close to saying all the Israeli withdrawals from occupied territory were a mistake.

But then, he has something of a track record in apparently being keen to tell different groups of people what he thinks they want to hear.

My daughter commented, I don't think he's likely to say that on Thought for the Day.

GuardianFor nearly two weeks Israel has been waging a war of terror and aggression against Lebanon. Its stated justification is the capture by the Islamic Resistance (Hizbullah) of two Israeli soldiers with the aim of exchanging them for Lebanese prisoners. The war has already resulted in the killing of around 400 and wounding of more than 1,000 Lebanese. Most are civilians (a third children), crushed in their homes or ripped to pieces in their cars by Israeli bombs and missiles.

In reality, the Israeli escalation is less about the two soldiers and more about its determination to disarm the Lebanese resistance. According to the US, Israel and some other western states, this would implement UN security council resolution 1559, which led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon last year.

Most Lebanese, however, do not regard the resistance forces of Hizbullah as militias, as referred to in the UN resolution, let alone any kind of terrorist organisation. Our resistance accomplished a major national mission by forcing Israeli troops to withdraw from most Lebanese territory in 2000 after 22 years of occupation. Since then there has been intense national debate about how Lebanon can defend itself in future once the resistance has achieved the liberation of the remaining occupied Lebanese land (the Shaba'a farms area) and the release of Lebanese detainees.

The Lebanese people's support for the resistance was demonstrated by the fact that Hizbullah and its allies won more seats in the 2005 elections, following the Syrian withdrawal, than when Syrian troops were still in the country. That is why Israel is now targeting civilians.

In the context of the continued occupation, detention of prisoners and repeated Israeli attacks and incursions into Lebanese territory, the capture of the Israeli soldiers was entirely legitimate. The operation was fully in line with the Lebanese ministerial declaration, supported in parliament, that stressed the right of the resistance to liberate occupied Lebanese territory, free prisoners of war and defend Lebanon against Israeli aggression. International law also allows peoples and states to take action to protect their citizens and territory. The Israeli onslaught is aimed not only at liquidating the resistance and destroying the country's infrastructure but at intervening in Lebanese politics and imposing conditions on what can be agreed.

There is now a clear national consensus on the need to maintain the military power necessary to prevent Lebanon from being subjugated by Israel's war machine. Popular resistance is a way of redressing the huge imbalance of power, defending Lebanon's sovereignty and preventing Israel from intervening in Lebanese internal affairs, as has happened repeatedly since 1948. It is also - as has been the case in the prisoner-capture operation - dictated by an entirely local agenda, rather than reflecting any Syrian or Iranian policy.

The aggression against Lebanon, which has primarily targeted civilians and failed to achieve any tangible military objectives, is part of a continuing attempt to impose Israeli hegemony on the area and prevent the emergence of a regional system that might guarantee stability, self-determination, freedom and democracy.

Hizbullah has tried from the start of this crisis to limit the escalation by adopting a policy of limited response while avoiding civilian targets; its aims were restricted to freeing the prisoners of war held in both camps. However, Israel's systematic destruction of entire civilian areas in Beirut and elsewhere and perpetration of scores of horrific massacres prompted Hizbullah to shift to an all-out confrontation to affirm Lebanon's right to deter aggression and defend its territorial integrity and its citizens, just as any sovereign state would do.

Thus far, Hizbullah has had surprising military successes, while maintaining its position in the face of Israel's superior fire power, and preserved its capacity to wage a long-term war. But Hizbullah is still ready to accept a ceasefire and negotiate indirectly an exchange of prisoners to bring the current crisis to an end.

This is what Israel has so far rejected, with the support of the US. For this is also a war of American hegemony over the Middle East, and the US - supported by the British government - is fully complicit in the Israeli war crimes carried out in the past two weeks. It would appear that the peaceful option will not be given a chance until Hizbullah and the forces of resistance have demonstrated their ability to confront Israel's aggression and thwart its objectives, as happened in 1993 and 1996. That is why resistance is not only a pillar of our sovereignty but also a prerequisite of stability.

Heavy bombing has continued in the south of the country over the past three days. Medical staff from the Lebanese Red Cross Society continue evacuating the wounded and sick under very difficult and dangerous conditions. The Society reported five security incidents in recent days affecting ambulances, events that highlight the obligation to spare those engaged in medical work.

The latest of these incidents occurred on 23 July, at 11.15 pm in Cana, a village in southern Lebanon. According to Lebanese Red Cross reports, two of its ambulances were struck by munitions, although both vehicles were clearly marked by the red cross emblem and flashing lights that were visible at a great distance. The incident happened while first-aid workers were transferring wounded patients from one ambulance to another. As a result, nine people including six Red Cross volunteers were wounded. "The ICRC is gravely concerned about the safety of medical staff ", said Balthasar Staehelin, the organization's delegate-general for the Middle East and North Africa. "We have raised this issue with the Israeli authorities and urged them to take the measures needed to avoid such incidents in the future."

Among other incidents of this type, on 19 July the Society's first-aid station in Insarieh was damaged, as were two ambulances. A first-aid worker suffered minor injuries. On 18 July, an ambulance received a direct hit while on a first-aid and evacuation mission.

The Lebanese Red Cross has been constantly active since the beginning of the crisis, meeting the most pressing needs of the civilian population with its 2,400 volunteers, 42 ambulance stations and over 50 clinics and other medical facilities across the country. It remains one of the few organizations able to evacuate war wounded and civilians under fire. The Society works in full cooperation with the ICRC.

Food stocks and medical supplies running low, water shortages reported in several villages in south

Food stocks in many parts of Lebanon are running low. Water shortages are already affecting several villages in southern Lebanon owing to a lack of electricity and fuel. In certain areas, shortages of medical supplies in health-care facilities are feared in the near future.

In the Tyre district, an estimated 110,000 people (20,000 families), both displaced people and residents, may soon run out of water and food. In many southern villages, dead bodies remain buried under rubble.

In the city of Tyre, the number of internally displaced people is fluctuating greatly as people flee northwards. Displaced people are receiving limited aid from the municipality of Tyre and other organizations. However, water shortages have been reported and hygiene conditions are poor. The main hospitals in the town are functioning satisfactorily well and for the time being have enough medicines.

Apart from emergency care for the wounded, access to medical services in southern Lebanon has been severely restricted.Humanitarian response

ICRC aid reaches Tyre and Marjayoun

On 24 July, two ICRC trucks reached Tyre. Marjayoun was also reached, for the first time, by several ICRC vehicles. The aid delivered consisted of two truckloads of family-sized food rations for distribution south of Tyre, and one truckload of emergency medical supplies for Marjayoun.

The organization also provided the Ministry of Health with dialysis equipment.

The ICRC now has two operational offices in Tyre and Marjayoun, in addition to its Beirut delegation.

Surgical specialist tours southern Lebanon

On 22 and 23 July, an ICRC war surgeon visited hospitals and other medical facilities - including those run by the Lebanese Red Cross in Tyre, Bent Jbeil, Cana and Tebnine - to provide ad hoc support for the treatment of the wounded and to assess needs.

Red Cross / Red Crescent action

Since the beginning of the crisis, Lebanese Red Cross ambulances have taken 333 wounded people to hospital and removed 75 dead. Red Cross vehicles have also evacuated 1,754 civilians in cases of serious need. The Society is also providing medical care for internally displaced persons all over the country.

Working closely with the Lebanese Red Cross, the ICRC continues to coordinate action by the Red Cross / Red Crescent Movement in Lebanon. Numerous National Societies are sending staff and relief and medical supplies.

Following requests from the Palestine Red Crescent branch in Lebanon, the ICRC is providing medical supplies for the ongoing operations of its hospital there.

The Syrian Arab Red Crescent has so far sent water and mobile telephone equipment. Meanwhile, Syrian Red Crescent volunteers and first-aid posts at four border posts are assisting refugees arriving in Syria from Lebanon.

[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

That's a funny old disclaimer by Reuters. Why would they disclaim a report by the Red Cross? Does it show Israel in such an appalling light that Reuters thought better of being fully associated with it? Why did they run it if they don't believe in it? They're Reuters for goodness sake. Are they saying an article they ran isn't reliable? Or, by publishing it, are Reuters saying that it is reliable. I think it's safe to say that Israel is targetting ambulances but Reuters is almost too scared or supine to tell us. It's worrying for those of us who want to keep up with what's going on.

Any comparison between Olmert's and Nasrallah's political rhetoric must conclude that the latter is the more rational. His speeches are consistent with the facts and rely less than Olmert's on religious expressions and allusions. Nasrallah would never dare seal a parliamentary speech with a lengthy prayer, as Olmert did in his latest speech before the Knesset.

Israeli politicians have no cultural or moral edge over resistance leaders. The latter are far less attached to Iran than the former are to the US, and Hizbullah's constituency is less attached to Iran than the organized Jewish community abroad is to Israel.

The people who unleashed the brutal war against Lebanon are neither intelligent nor courageous. Quite the opposite; they are mediocrities, cowards and opportunists, but they happen to have military superiority. And they possess the keys to the machinery of a state, a real state, one that is secure in its identity, that has clear national security goals and channels of national mobilization, as opposed to a long deferred project for statehood and a state built on the fragmentation of national identity. On the other side is a resistance movement operating in the context of a denominationally organized society, a Lebanese government neutralized to everything but sectarianism, and an Arab order parts of which are rooting for Israel to do what it is incapable, or too embarrassed, to do itself, which is to deal with the resistance as a militia because it foregrounds their own lack of national and popular legitimacy.

Israel has nothing to show for ten days of barbaric vandalism and the deliberate targeting of civilians. It cannot claim a single military victory against the Lebanese resistance. It can, though, point proudly to whole residential quarters that have been reduced to rubble, to the burned out hulks and ruins of countless wharfs, factories, bridges, roads, tunnels, electricity generators and civil defense buildings. In terms of explosive and destructive power Israel has thrown an atom bomb on Lebanon, it is the Israeli Hiroshima.

There was a rally in support of Israel's murderous onslaught against Gaza and Lebanon on Sunday. It was held in the Jews' Free School in Kenton. With such short notice and many people being away on holiday there was only a very small picket mounted by Jews for Justice for Palestinians. This is the report back by one of them:

Brief report on the picket: in the end there were five of us - all women - plus four small boys from the neighbourhood, two Pakistani and two Lebanese, who decided to join us - they were very helpful with handing out JfJfP leaflets, making placards out of cardboard which they fetched from home, and trying to talk to people. - though one woman accused us of "exploiting Lebanese children"!

The police had set up a special barrier for us to stand behind, but in the end decided to let us stand behind the school railings so we could talk to people as they went in and came out. We were also allowed to tie the JfJfP banner to the railings - it looked very striking with its slogan "Jews for Justice for Palestinians: Israel: Stop the Killings - Negotiate!" There seemed to be thousands and thousands of people going into the school - a lot of them just ignored us, a few were quite polite and friendly, but - especially when they left at the end, when they were fired up with nationalism - a large number were extremely hostile and really very dangerous and we were very glad of the police presence. They tore up our leaflets, grabbed our placards and tore them to pieces, tried to tear down our banner (the police managed to prevent this) and I really think they would have torn us to pieces if the police hadn't been there - the police actually had to intervene twice to prevent physical attacks. They spat at us, called us "traitors" and accused us of being like concentation camp kapos and said they hoped we would rot or burn in hell. Two of us had come by car with another JfjfP signatory and a policeman had to escort us to the car (parked a few streets away) at the end because of the likelihood we would be attacked.

On the other hand, there was quite a lot of press interest, and we gave interviews to the Press Association and the Evening Standard. So on the whole I think it was worth doing, though it was certainly not a pleasant experience.

a JfJfP signatory actually started crying at one point, not because she was frightened but because she was so upset at the hate and nastiness .... she kept asking them if they were happy that 10 times more Lebanese civilians had been killed than Israeli, and many of them said they were perfecty happy with this, and one man said "I wish it was 40 times as much" and another one said "I wish it was a million times as much"...

The presence we at Jews against zionism mounted to counter-picket against the Zionist Federation/Betar picket of the Rachel Corrie cantata was far more successful in terms of numbers and even that was a bit scary but we were preaching largely to the converted. What these five women did took a combination of physical and moral courage and they weren't preaching to converts. Far from it. They were countering a rally by race hate-mongers. I was tied up with something else yesterday and I tried to talk the two women I knew were going on the picket out of it. Thankfully they didn't listen.

A small counter-demonstration was staged outside the event by Jewish people opposed to military action in Lebanon.

They blotted their copy book quite badly at the cantata by interviewing people from JAZ but only reporting the ghoulish picket by the Zionist Federation and Betar and even showing photos of some of our people and calling them ZF! Disgraceful!

According to Reuters, Condoleezza Rice has said that a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah is urgent. This is a departure her position on Friday when she said that a ceasfire now would be a "false promise.

"On a mission to avert full-scale war in the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there was an urgent need for a ceasefire in southern Lebanon but conditions had to be right.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday as she flew to the region, Rice said her focus would also be to ease the humanitarian crisis after nearly two weeks of fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and Israeli forces.

"It is very important to establish conditions under which a ceasefire can take place. We believe that a ceasefire is urgent. It is important to have conditions that will make it also sustainable," said Rice before a refueling stop in Shannon, Ireland.

Her trip includes stops in Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories.

Before leaving Washington, Rice met Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal at the White House where he pressed President George W. Bush to agree to an immediate ceasefire in southern Lebanon.

Bush has so far resisted calling for an immediate ceasefire, saying Israel has a right to defend itself and a cessation of hostilities must address the root causes of the conflict.

After pressure from the Saudis, Rice seemed to take a softer line than last Friday when she said an immediate ceasefire would be a "false promise" that would let Hizbollah reemerge to attack Israel.

Rice said conditions for a ceasefire included that the Lebanese government must have total sovereignty over its land and Hizbollah must not be allowed to use its territory to "plunge Lebanon and the region into war".

Total sovereignty? This means that Israel and America can decide who governs Lebanon.

Anyway, the change of language seems to be a result of lobbying by friendly Arab regimes, particularly Saudi Arabia.

The Sha'itas had thought they were on the road to safety when they set out yesterday, leaving behind a village which because of an accident of geography - it is five miles from the Israeli border - had seemed to make their home a killing ground. They had been ordered to evacuate by the Israelis.

But they were a little too slow and became separated from the other vehicles fleeing the Israeli air offensive in south Lebanon. Minutes before the Guardian's car arrived, trailing a Red Cross ambulance on its way to other civilian wounded in another town, an Israeli missile pierced the roof of the Sha'itas' white van. Three passengers sitting in the third row were killed instantly, including Ali's grandmother. Sixteen other passengers were wounded. In recent days, families like the Sha'itas are bearing the brunt of Israel's air campaign and its efforts to rid the area of civilians before ground operations. A day after Israel's deadline for people to leave their homes and flee north of the Litani river, roads which in ordinary times wind lazily through tobacco fields and banana groves have been turned into highways of death.

Plumes of smoke rise in the distance, and the road in front of us offers up signs of closer peril: car wrecks, still smoking after Israeli strikes, and abandoned vehicles with shattered rear windows. Some were direct hits by Israeli aircraft. Others were drivers who had lost control. Overhead is the menacing roar of Israeli warplanes and the buzz of drones tracking every movement.

July 23, 2006

This is strange. Kim Howells, junior foreign minister and former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel, has uttered some mild words of criticism over Israel's targetting of civilians and civilian infrastructure in Lebanon. Meanwhile, Tony Blair, the Prime Minister who appointed the former chairman of Labour Friends of Israel to the post of junior foreign minister, hasn't said a word to criticise Israel and John Prescott, whose job title I can't remember, has said that there is no rift between the PM and the Foreign Office.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's deputy John Prescott denied on Sunday any suggestion that the British government was divided over support for Israel's military offensive in Lebanon.

During a visit to Lebanon on Saturday, Britain's junior foreign minister Kim Howells openly criticized Israel's tactics, while Blair and US President George W Bush have stressed Israel's right to defend itself.

"There isn't a division between the foreign office and the government," Prescott, the deputy prime minister, told BBC television on Sunday.

Prescott said he saw no sign of a rift when he attended a cabinet meeting on Thursday in which Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett was present.

"The cabinet had a serious discussion about this matter and frankly there isn't a division at all," he said.

"But Kim was reflecting his concerns as he saw them and one can understand that if you've got thousands of rockets being sent one way, attacks in another that has meant war. War can't solve the situation," he said.

Howells disputed claims that Israel's bombardment of targets in Lebanon were "surgical strikes" aimed at stopping the Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah from attacking the Jewish state.

"It's very difficult to understand the kind of military tactics that are being used," Howells told journalists in Beirut.

"If they are chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation," Howells, minister of state for the Middle East, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said.

The Israelis "are destroying the infrastructure of Lebanon and killing an enormous number of people," he said, speaking on the Sky News television channel.

I think this is a tactic but I'm not sure who it's aimed at. It's common in zionist circles to say that the Foreign Office is "pro-Arab" so did Howells have a diplomats' rebellion on his hands? Did Blair ask him to criticise Israel publicly so as to keep Britain in with a bunch of reactionary Arab regimes who must surely be exasperated with America? Or is Howells genuinely concerned for the well-being of the civilian victims of Israeli atrocities? If it's that last one then how did he ever get to be a friend of Israel in the first place?

In Ha'aretz, Gideon Levy argues that the war can stop right now on the basis that both sides, that is Hezbollah and Israel, can claim victory.

This war must be stopped now and immediately. From the start it was unnecessary, even if its excuse was justified, and now is the time to end it. Every day raises its price for no reason, taking a toll in blood that gives Israel nothing tangible in return. This is a good time to stop the war because both sides can claim they won:

Israel harmed Hezbollah and Hezbollah harmed Israel. History shows that no situation is better for reaching an arrangement. Remember the lessons of the Yom Kippur War.

Israel went into the campaign on justified grounds and with foul means. It claims it has declared war on Hezbollah but, in practice, it is destroying Lebanon. It has gotten most of what it could have out of this war. The aerial "target bank" has mostly been covered. The air force could continue to sow destruction in the residential neighborhoods and empty offices and could also continue dropping dozens of tons of bombs on real or imagined bunkers and kill innocent Lebanese, but nothing good will come of it.

Those who want to restore Israel's deterrent capabilities have succeeded. Hezbollah and the rest of its enemies know that Israel reacts with enormous force to any provocation. South Lebanon is cleaner now of a Hezbollah presence. In any case, the organization is likely to return there, just as it is likely to rearm. An international agreement could be achieved now, and it won't be possible to achieve a better deal at a reasonable price in the future.

Levy notes that

the price is skyrocketing. Every day increases international criticism of Israel and hatred of it. That is also an element in "national security." As opposed to the choir in Israel that makes a false presentation as if the world is cheering Israel, the images from Beirut are causing Israel enormous damage, and rightly so. Not only in the streets of the Arab world is more and more hatred being sown, but also in the West. Not only hundreds of thousands of Lebanese but tens of thousands of Westerners fleeing from Lebanon are contributing to the depiction of Israel as a violent, crude and destructive state.

It might be too late to stop that "depiction" even with an immediate cessation of bombings by Israel.

More than 2,500 people on Saturday attended a demonstration against the war in Lebanon, marching from Tel Aviv's Rabin Square to a rally at the Cinemateque plaza.

The rally was the first of its kind protesting against the IDF's offensive in Lebanon. Unlike previous anti-war protests in israel, major Arab organizations in Israel - among them Hadash and Balad - participated in the event in large numbers.

They were joined by the left flank of the Zionist Left - former Meretz leader Shulamit Aloni and Prof. Galia Golan, alongside the radical left of Gush Shalom, the refusal to serve movement Yesh Gvul, Anarchists Against the Wall, Coalition of Women for Peace, Taayush and others.

These Jewish and Arab groups ordinarily shy away from joint activity. They couldn't come up with a unifying slogan this time either, except for the call to stop the war and start talking. However, protest veterans noted that in the Lebanon War of 1982 it took more than 10 days of warfare to bring out this many protesters, marking the first crack in the consensus.

The protest drew some new faces, like Tehiya Regev of Carmiel, whose two neighbors were killed in a Katyusha attack on the city. "This war is not headed in the right direction," she told Haaretz; "the captured soldiers have long since been forgotten, so I came to call for an immediate stop to this foolish and cruel war."

The rally, which received wide international press coverage, had a theme unfamiliar from previous demonstrations here. Beside the usual calls for the prime minister and defense minister to resign, this was a distinctly anti-American protest. Alongside chants of "We will not kill, we will not die in the name of Zionism" there were chants of "We will not die and ill not kill in the service of the United States," and slogans condemning President George W. Bush.

There's a passing comparison with the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and opposition to it. I've noticed that many of the supporters of this war like to stress their anti-1982 war credentials. I think many who claimed to oppose the war on Lebanon and the Palestinians in 1982 only did so because it was a Likud war and they still hadn't got used to Likud running the State. Now after years of Likud/Labour coalitions, zionism has shown itself to be pretty, if not entirely, monolithic, with many a "left" zionist supporting the Israeli onslaught. And so the zionist "left" is outed as being zionist first and left a distant second if it has any place at all. Still the demonstration is encouraging.

From the World Tribune it seems that Israel's airforce/military chiefs have been surprised by the failure of their aerial bombardment to halt Lebanese resistance.

Israel's new chief of staff, an air force general, believed that most of Israel's future operations would be conducted from the air.

Military leaders were convinced that with superior communications and air power they did not even need new U.S. "bunker buster" munitions to root out terror leaders in underground hideaways.

Today, this vision of air power as a panacea has been shattered.

Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz and his advisers have been stunned by the failure of Israel's air war against Hizbullah, which has shrugged massive air bombings on its headquarters in Beirut to maintain the rocket war against the Jewish state.

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran's efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

"The appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign?" Those Arabs! So easily fooled by appearances. Can't they see that America is doing all that it can to stop the killing?

For those who don't wish to register with the New York Times, the full article is here and here.

I posted some time ago about how the so-called American Jewish Committee was inciting war against Iran by way of full page ads in newspapers around the world. Well according to the Guardian the Advertising Standards Authority has upheld a complaint from the Iranian embassy against the advert. Here's the article:

The advertising watchdog has upheld a complaint from the Iranian embassy about a campaign by the American Jewish Committee that showed the projected range of possible missile attacks on neighbouring countries.

The US pressure group's campaign, which ran in the Financial Times, prompted 62 complaints from members of the public as well as the Iranian embassy.

The advert, which asked the question, "Can anyone within range of Iran's missiles feel safe?", featured a political map of Eurasia and Africa, centred on Iran, which was in the middle of two concentric circles that indicated the current and projected range of Iran's missile capability.

The complainants said the ad was "scaremongering" and appealed to people's fears of terrorist attacks; that it was "irresponsible" and likely to incite violence and hatred against Muslims and Iranians in particular; and was misleading because it implied that Iran would use nuclear weapons to launch attacks on any countries in the range of the circles.

The AJC did not respond to the Advertising Standards Authority's inquiries.

The FT said the ad was clearly labelled and represented the views of a well-known advocacy group, and pointed out that they had taken legal advice before publishing the ad.

The edition of the FT in which the ad appeared had a prominent article about Iran's nuclear programme.

And the newspaper pointed out that the text of the ad posed a question, not a statement of fact. It also defended the content as acceptable because of the "calibre" of the FT's readership.

The ASA dismissed all the complaints except those relating to the claims on the estimated and projected missile ranges.

The AJC, which is a New York-based pressure group whose aim is "combating anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry", was told not to repeat the claims.

In other words, the AJC was exaggerating about the existence, range and efficacy of Iranian weapons. Now where has that happened before?